2003 budget gives Army about $10 billion more
by Joe Burlas
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Feb. 5, 2002) -- The president's budget for 2003 proposes giving the Army $91 billion, $9.9 billion more than authorized for the current fiscal year.
The requested budget reflects a balanced base program that supports the Army Vision and Transformation while ensuring warfighting readiness and force protection, according to Army leaders.
The Army budget -- along with the budgets for the other services -- was released for public review Feb. 4. The Senate Armed Services Committee is holding hearings on the proposed Department of Defense budget this week. If approved, it will be the largest DoD budget since the military buildup in the early 1980s.
"We want a force that sees first, understands first and acts decisively first," said Maj. Gen. Jerry L. Sinn, director of the Army Budget. "This budget funds a third (Interim Brigade Combat Team) while increasing our funding for research efforts toward fielding the Objective Force this decade."
In last year's Defense Authorization Act, Congress approved funding for the fielding of the first two IBCTs -- the Army's near-term solution to improve deployment and warfighting capabilities over current Legacy Force systems before fielding its future Objective Force.
Significant increases in research funding will be applied to mature programs near breakthroughs, Sinn said. Some of those development programs are the Comanche helicopter, Crusader self-propelled howitzer and Shadow Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.
While the Army works toward developing and fielding future combat systems, the 2003 budget will also help ease the strain of aging combat systems -- some of them more than 20 years old -- by recapitalizing 17 systems in selected units. Those Legacy Force systems include the AH-64 Apache, UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47 Chinook helicopters; M-1 Abrams tank; and M-2 Bradley fighting vehicle. The cost to upgrade these systems and "bring them down to zero miles, zero hours" is significant, so initial triage efforts will focus on systems within III Corps units, primarily located at Forts Bliss and Hood, Texas, Sinn said.
A 20-percent increase in the Army's Operation and Maintenance account over last year includes funding for ongoing operations in Bosnia and Kosovo for the first time. In the past, each service paid for contingency operations by delaying or moving funds around for other O&M programs until Congress approved a supplemental budget later in a given fiscal year.
Funding for Operations Enduring Freedom and Noble Eagle -- with about 12,000 soldier deployed in the Central Command area of operations and 24,000 mobilized Reserve and National Guard troops -- is costing the Army approximately $365 million a month, Sinn said. That cost is primarily covered by an approved Defense Emergency Restoration Fund.
The O&M increase also funds about a third of identified base operations antiterrorism and force protection needs. Between the USS Cole terrorist incident last year and the Sept. 11 attacks, Army installations were ordered to limit installation access and increase force protection measures without any additional funding to implement the requirements. The Army again will use triage measures to fund the most pressing needs first and plans to fund all installation antiterrorism/force protection needs over the next three years, Sinn said.
"Given Sept. 11, the days of open posts are over," Sinn said.
While military construction and family housing funding remains even with last year's authorization of $1.6 billion, the real effect is the Army is actually coming out ahead given the maturing Residential Communities Initiative program, Sinn said.
RCI promotes partnerships with industry to lease Army land to renovate, maintain and manage all family housing operations, as well as build addition quarters as needed. The companies get the tenant soldiers' basic housing allowances. As the civilian-partner companies fund family housing construction, renovation and maintenance, the Army can use its construction and family housing funds overseas and at other installations where RCI hasn't been fully implemented, Sinn said.
On the people side of the house, the budget funds a 4.1-percent pay increase for all soldiers and allows a targeted pay raise of up to an additional 2.4 percent in selected pay grades. While the specifics have not been fully worked out, Sinn said, the targeted pay raise will likely be directed to sergeants through sergeants major, warrant officers, captains and majors. The budget supports a 2.1-percent pay raise for Department of the Army civilians.
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